What's wrong with their feathers?

[ChooksChick]

OK!! I didn't realize that a "silkied" chicken was a pure bred of whatever breed (in your case...silkied AM's) that just had recessive genes for hookless feathers. I thought "silkied" chicks were bred from crossing a Silkie into the bloodline of your chickens to get the h gene incorporated. Are hookless feathers a common gene mutation? I thought that Silkies were the only chickens with hookless feathers...sorry, but I am even still lerning more!

There are some Swedish that have it, some South Americans that have it, some bantam Cochins spontaneously developed it (Bantam Barn- Steve Wheat has them!), and they appear in Ayam Cemani occasionally. I know there are also Seramas with it. I'm sure there are more, but those are all I know of off of the top of my head.

It's pretty wild to have a larger bird than a Silkie...definitely more like fur than feathers!!

 

[ESofVA]

I have also read posts on BYC from several different people working on getting Silkied chickens of breeds. So this means that they have also have had silkied chickens show up in the breed of birds they have and none of those have used Silkies in their breeding programs either? Sorry, I am just trying to get this straight in my head! LOL!

 

[LBKS]

I have also read posts on BYC from several different people working on getting Silkied chickens of breeds. So this means that they have also have had silkied chickens show up in the breed of birds they have and none of those have used Silkies in their breeding programs either? Sorry, I am just trying to get this straight in my head! LOL!

Just finished reading the last bit of this thread, but basically silkied feathers have shown up spontaneously way back into chicken history - after all, it had to happen to the first Sillkie chicken too, didn't it?

In this case the consensus seems to point toward this being another spontaneous mutation that caused the same feathering. Think of it like the version of the hookless gene for regular feathers is spelled "FEATHERS" but Silkies have a version of that gene spelled "HEATHERS" and it doesn't look the same at all. The small letter difference makes the feathers go from looking normal to looking hairy.

You could still have an Ameracuna pop up with the version of that gene spelled "LEATHERS" and it wouldn't look like regular "FEATHERS" either. But maybe, in the way the gene gets expressed, "HEATHERS" and "LEATHERS" has the same appearance. Still completely different sources for the same effect.

That said, there are also some people who are working on Silkie-Ameracuna crosses - but those are NOT the birds discussed in this thread (they are another set of project birds, for people working with the crosses). In this thread they are discussing the chickens with silkie-type feathering that originated from Jubaby's original pair of chickens.

If I messed anything, someone please correct me so I don't missinform folks

 

[grammanenan]

And there is still hope that I will be able to find my black Ameraucana hen, carrying the fluffy gene, a boyfriend yet

She is not very large, lays a pretty blue egg, and acts like a cat chasing a ball of yarn. Soooo funny...

 

[LBKS]

And there is still hope that I will be able to find my black Ameraucana hen, carrying the fluffy gene, a boyfriend yet

She is not very large, lays a pretty blue egg, and acts like a cat chasing a ball of yarn. Soooo funny...

Hope she finds herself a nice roo! I'm prepping for a hatch out for May of Ameracunas - if I'm lucky enough to get some fluffies at some point then I'll have their diverse breeding stock to cross ready to go. Plus the Amera's are so pretty!

 

[ChickenRonin]

Hi guys, I have been absent from the BYC forums for quite a while, so I'm not sure what has happened with the fluffies in about the last year. I have four roosters, two fluffy and two smooth, that I have decided to re-home. These are birds that came from Liz (alicefelldown), hatched in Jan last year. I unexpectedly became pregnant last year, and life has been a whirlwind since the little one came into our lives. I have been hanging on to these Roos hoping that I could eventually start my breeding program up again, but it's just not happening as quickly as I would like, and these guys need to be somewhere being used. I have not test bred the smoothes. Contact me through PM if interested, no shipping but transport within WA ID OR could be arranged. My little guy is waking up, gotta go!
Edited to add that I will be driving from WA to Reno NV in May and could transport them along my route if needed. I will be hitting Utah along the way.

 

[LBKS]

Good luck finding homes for your Roos, ChickenRonin! Hoping this post bumps the thread and helps a bit on locating some takers.

I met up with ChooksChick to pick up some eggs on Wednesday night and will (fingers crossed) have some new chicks to add to this project in a few weeks. The second week of May should be when my hatch of Ameraucana eggs arrive for some diverse blood to add to the SFAs, so they won't be too much younger than the flufferballs

My focus is going to be on breeding to other Ameraucanas to improve the SFA's vigor and egg color first and am not going to worry about feather color for now. Time to put all that probability theory to good use! Eventual goal is to put the data/statistics I find up on a website so the rest of you can use it to help with your programs.

 

[TREX]

I think thats a great idea.Once you have them breeding true then you can worry about breeding for certain colors.To be honest though I don't care what color they are as long as they are fluffy and breed more fluffies.

 

[LBKS]

Just an update for you all:

Last Wednesday I drove down to pick up the eggs from ChooksChick and they have been cookin' for about a week. Did my first candle today and all of them are showing signs of some sort of development. Mostly they just appear darkened up, but for a few eggs my light really shows off the veins. I'll candle again at day 18 when they go to lock down, but so far so good.

 

[welasharon]

Good luck with your hatch! This has been the most interesting thread to follow!